


Fight the Future

by Novantinuum (ChromaticDreams)



Series: Brandishing the Star: A Crystal Gem's Guide to the Universe (SU shorts) [19]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Denial, Gen, I'm not tagging character death because we all know Jasper's okay in the end, Kinda some sanity slippage, Mental Health Issues, Set during Fragments, Shattered Gems, Steven Universe Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24202546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromaticDreams/pseuds/Novantinuum
Summary: She’s poofed,he repeats to himself like a dying man’s mantra.She’s poofed. She’s stuck in the rubble, but she’s only poofed. She’s fine, and I’m fine, a-and—Above the scars of Steven's wreckage, thunder claps like mighty titans colliding in the heavens.(Or: what happens in the moments after Steven and Jasper's rematch.)
Series: Brandishing the Star: A Crystal Gem's Guide to the Universe (SU shorts) [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1491011
Comments: 17
Kudos: 92





	Fight the Future

The impact shreds the landscape, gouging deep cracks that penetrate through to bedrock and felling nearly every tree in a good hundred-yard radius. Rubble is still settling, small fragments of bark and stone raining to the ground like scattered bomb shrapnel, but in the heat of the moment he genuinely can’t hear a thing through the blood that pounds in his ears like a war drum. There’s only ringing. Nothing but ringing...

Floating high above the scars of his wreckage, Steven Quartz Universe pants hard, exhausted and lightheaded from all the physical exertion and yet clutching to the tingling energy pulsing under his glowing pink skin with all the desperation of a lost child. This... the raw diamond power he’s been holding back on expressing all this time... surely this has to be what he’s been searching for. This _has_ to be the piece to fill that growing emptiness he can’t seem to shake, right? Right?? Stars, he doesn’t want to let go of this feeling, this invigorating rush, not now, not yet. His fists tremble at his sides. H-he... he’s not ready to be anything else. Besides, the fight isn’t even over. His opponent hasn’t gotten up yet. She’s probably feigning defeat, hoping to catch him off guard. Hah, good ol’, typical Jasper!

With a huff of resolve, he wipes the sweat off his brow and wills himself to drift down to the shattered earth below. Sandaled feet meet the ground toes first. As he fully settles upon his soles, loosened soil shifts under his weight. He scans through the wreckage for the quartz Gem, the inanity of this whole harebrained situation drawing breathless laughter from between his lips. For a split second its darkened tone almost strikes him as alien, but he quickly shreds this thought. After all, everything’s fine! _He’s_ fine. In fact, he’s more than fine. He’s nearly won.

 _“Please,_ I know you’re not finished yet,” he goads, an intoxicating dose of satisfaction (as for once in his life, he has full _control_ of something and that thought feels so alluring it’s as if he’s finally greeting the sun) flooding his synapses. He cracks his knuckles hard enough that she’ll be sure to hear. “The fight’s barely started, get up!”

Nothing. No footsteps, no taunting, not even her usual groan of derision. Outwardly he turns his lip up in a sneer. Inside his chest however, a far different story plays out. His heart constricts like it’s being crushed by a vice, tinnitus acting up ever stronger as he tries with desperation not to let this deafening silence taint his apparent victory.

 _Something’s wrong, something_ _has_ _to be wrong,_ his mind screams underneath all the mock bravado holding him in one piece. In retrospect that should’ve been his first sign to disengage, the fact that even his body is viscerally reacting to the sight of his wreckage, but in the heat of the moment he stamps out this nettering worry like Jasper would a bug. No! He will not allow himself to crumple to fear again! He’s not afraid of this. That’s why he’s been training. He’s in control now. Not Jasper, not the Gems, not these emerging diamond powers, nor his ever-increasing list of anxieties. And it’s for that precise reason that in all the moments he bares his fists, drops on his haunches... whenever he consciously allows the full force of his ability to burst forth in a flash from the deep wells of his soul like lightning to a tree... he’s not just fighting to prove himself to someone.

He’s fighting the future itself.

He’s done being yanked around by tragedy, by genes, by all his family’s unfinished business. It can’t control him. He won’t let it, not anymore.

_I’m in control._

And yet...

 _(A throat tearing scream, propelled by the creeping desire to fix, to refine, to_ _control_ _... and yet a crater of spiderwebbed cracks he never intended branching underfoot as his audience looks on in slack jawed horror—)_

_(A dome of his own subconscious creation, born of fear and anxiety and selfishness, unstoppable, pressing inwards, pressing all who dare touch him ever closer towards their ultimate fate—)_

_(A surge of strength, built from anger and betrayal and loss felt for the stable life he’d never have... the sickening realization that he’s helpless to steer the van straight again as he slams his foot down on the break—)_

...if he’s in control, why hasn’t his opponent showed her face yet? Why can’t he force his tensed muscles to ease up, or will away that unbearably nauseous sensation growing ever more present in his gut? 

“Jasper, come on! I didn’t hit you _that_ hard.”

The waking world responds by confirming his solitude, the dust that‘s swirling around his legs finally beginning to settle as he takes five wide strides towards the center of the impact crater. The closer he approaches, the more he realizes that his view of the site from far above really didn’t succeed in illustrating just how radical his influence on the landscape was. 

Sure, so maybe the monolithic hard light barrier he constructed by sheer force of will has long since dissipated, but its apocalyptic hand on the environment remains. A few concave indents (from the spikes) are scattered throughout the cracked, uneven earth where it is not otherwise fractured beyond all recognition. The tree trunks left standing are so harshly splintered that he’s sure the razor sharp edges of their bark could slice his fingers. Fallen branches, heavily segmented and warped, mix evenly between blocky chunks of stone and clay. Pine needles are scattered across the face of the ruins like confetti. With his overactive digits growing increasingly squirrelly at his side the longer he observes his handiwork, his gaze shies down.

_Stop!!!_

His sandaled foot hovers.

Ants. A vast colony of them, tiny and black and darting about all lost and confused. Normally one doesn’t see so many of them crowding at the surface, but all this destruction must have unearthed their intricate network of tunnels.

Steven stumbles back a few steps from the heart of the panicked, scurrying mass, knowing immediately by the sharp twist in his chest that he didn’t manage to miss all of them. H-he- stars, why does he even care so much? They’re just ants. It’s not like he’s never accidentally stepped on an ant before, yeah? And it’s certainly not like he, a self-proclaimed vegetarian, hasn’t spent the past three days surviving entirely off fish he personally caught, skewered, and broiled! It’s not like any of this is inherently _wrong,_ it’s just... different. He’s different. He’s changing, transforming, just like this landscape changed. And that’s okay!

 _This is exactly what I wanted,_ he tells himself, a broken smile creeping across his face. I’m _different, but I’m better. I am! I’m in control of myself now!_

The teenager grips at his hair, fingers clutching tight around thick clumps of unwashed, overgrown curls, and yanks. (Needle pricks of pain shoot across his scalp like a metaphysical lattice. His choice. Somewhere, somehow, it’s probably deserved.) An almost tipsy peel of laughter surfaces from a place deep in his soul yet unbeknownst to him. His limbs tremble as he struggles to take a breath between it all.

“I’m in control,” he rasps, hands drifting to press at his temples. Nature responds with a startling thunderclap. He flinches on instinct, another laugh bubbling over the brim. “I _am,_ I’m...”

Another roll of thunder. Slowly, steadily, he begins to feel cold raindrops sprinkle against his still-glowing skin as he inhales fast and shallow, standing at the center of the clearing. Almost everything outside the narrow radius of his light is dark and muted and painted in shades of brown and grey. There’s barely any green. With the intruding storm, no blue. And as for orange...

Suddenly feeling like nothing more than an insignificant speck upon this landscape, he cups his mouth and roars.

_“Jasper!!”_

For a moment nature seems to accept his cry, taking it up through her roots like a tree does nutrients from the soil, but it quickly becomes obvious that the nutrients he provides are nothing but toxic. Degenerating. Something to be rejected. The distant cliffs bounce his words back at him without thinking twice, naught a single response to be found on the wind. There’s only rain now.

Nothing but rain.

A harsh shudder runs through his body as the reality of his situation begins to set in. He stands motionless, feet chained into place, his clothes growing wetter and wetter as the thunderstorm’s strength picks up. In all this time, Jasper’s made no move to retaliate. She hasn’t even shown her face. So... This fight- is that it? Is their rematch over? D-did he...

His eyes widen so far in his dawning comprehension that they sting.

“Oh geeze, I poofed her, didn’t I?” he says out loud, bluntly answering his own question. “That’s why she’s not responding... I-I—“ his words are cut in the middle by a choked sob, a strange noise caught somewhere between the tides of pride and utter disbelief— “I actually _poofed_ her!”

He quickly finds himself overrun with laughter once more, this latest batch rough and strained, a wordless plead for help. (But no worries, though, really! He can figure this out!) Desperate, wandering fingers tug across the coarse stubble dusting his cheeks. Dampened curls plaster against his forehead, his head almost feeling heavier for it. So yeah, maybe he poofed her. From all evidence, that seems to be the most likely scenario here. He, Steven Quartz Cutie-Pie DeMayo Diamond Universe, singlehandedly poofed a Gem. But it’s not like he‘s never done that before?? Bismuth? Spinel? This isn’t anything new. He’s not so innocent as he’d like to believe he is. And sure, so maybe he held the upper ground on his finishing blow, and _maybe_ this entire fight wasn’t in self defense like the others to begin with, but that’s not a problem either! All this? Just a spar. It’s just training. In a moment he’ll find Jasper’s gem buried in the rubble, and when she reforms back at camp she’ll give him a rough clap on the back and admit something uncharacteristically touchy-feely about how she never imagined he actually had it in him, and everything will be _fine._ It will!

Inhaling deep through his nose, he drops to his knees at the center of the crater— pointedly ignoring the damp soaking through his jeans and the shiver dancing up his spine— and begins pulling aside thick slabs of stone. Another nearby lightning strike asserts its presence with a frightening clap, his limbs seizing up and his heart ramming double time on impulse. He grimaces, rainwater dripping off his nose and chin. Stars, it’s only thunder! He hasn’t been scared of thunder since he was a child, so what’s all this about? He’s stronger than this. He’s _better_ than this. Stubbornly refusing to let nature’s force intimidate him, he pushes on. Another roll of thunder, another stone overturned. Not a glint of orange to be found here either.

It’s strange... he’s not even off the ground, but he feels like he’s falling, his body limp and helpless to break his descent, the ground rushing to swallow him whole faster than he can move to even protect his face. And like an ill-fated omen, a destiny he may ignore but never shake, this feeling clings to him like the inescapable stench of smoke on charred clothes. If anything else, he supposes it’s proof he faced the fires head on and survived.

He can’t say the same for Jasper.

Above, thunder claps like mighty titans colliding in the heavens.

 _(Boisterous, neigh-unrecognizable laughter, a sky walled off in panels of incandescent light… his opponent’s terror-stricken form shackled to the very Earth she detests as she awaits his next attack, finally powerless in the claws of the diamond once beaten and belittled by her might and doesn’t that just drip with irony, doesn’t not holding back for once against someone who hurt you feel_ _great_ _—)_

Chunks of clay break apart in his hands as he angles to relocate them. No gemstone yet.

 _She’s poofed,_ he repeats to himself like a dying man’s mantra. _She’s poofed. She’s stuck in the rubble, but she’s only poofed. She’s fine, and I’m fine, a-and—_

His mind grows dizzier and fainter by the second as he searches for his reassurance, for some steady surface upon which he might gently end his descent. _Falling…_ He’s still falling. But the problem now is that his heart is pounding so hard his chest feels like it's bruising from the inside out, and all the drab greys and browns of his surroundings have blurred together until he can barely distinguish the start and end of anything. Hands once steady and assured now repeatedly fumble over uneven chunks of wet stone, unable to grasp their edges solidly enough to turn them over. H-he… no matter how hard he fights, he still can’t—! The diamond huffs, smooth, blemishless fingers slamming into hardened fists. Frustration spilling out broken and raw like hunks of cotton from between his soul’s uneven seams, he stares into the face of the uncaring, stormy sky and screams.

Energy explodes outwards, momentarily tinting his world in pink. He screams until he’s hoarse, until his throat burns like an inferno and his innate healing factor has to once more clean up the damage he’s sewn. (Although today he almost wishes it wouldn’t.) Behind him, something cracks at his command. Still very much panting in light of such a bombastic release of power, he presses a weary hand to his forehead and turns to meet the sight head on.

Be it from exhaustion or clear-cut denial, it takes a while for him to fully comprehend what he’s looking at.

His screams have cleaved a flat slab of stone in half. Before, this slab seems to have been propped diagonal against a sturdy boulder in an almost tent-like fashion, shielding the rough soil below from the elements and any further defacement. Both the soil, and…

_Oh._

His head fills with static. Glimmers of orange flood through his synapses as if he’s staring through the eyepiece of a kaleidoscope, and suddenly the whole world’s spinning and shifting and—

The next moment he’s aware, he’s on his hands and knees before the sight in question, those quivering, squirming fingers clawing into uneven earth as if it too may abandon him at a moment’s notice, having realized far too late how terrible a person he is, how he- _NO!_ He heaves for breath as his herculean form pulses with light and shrinks down to his typical soft, stocky self, leaving not a trace of pink in its wake. The surrounding world is plunged into darkness. Choking back a sob, he yanks his hands out of the ground and desperately smooths over the divots he made as if this single act could in any way make up for the blunt reality that ~~he’s a sha~~ \- **_NO!_** _NO, NO NONONONONO- not real not real not real, NONE of this can be real, there’s no way, it’s not true, stars, h-he’s not—_

His whole body trembling like a man angling to greet death, Steven reaches a hesitant finger towards one of the orange, glittering quartz shards littering the soil. This isn’t real. Those shards can’t be real, can’t really be lying amidst the rot and ruin in the rain, and he’ll prove it. H-he’s having a nightmare, he has to be. He _has_ to! Because if he’s not, a-and ~~he caused this,~~ and Jasper, she- if she’s really—

Skin meets crystal, organic heat pooling against the cold, lifeless facet in a veritable explosion of sensation. The shard shifts under his touch and knocks against the other pieces of Jasper’s gem. _Tangible, and very, very real._ Gasping, he jerks back as if burned by ice, bile rising in his throat.

 _SHATTERER_ ~~ _I’m a shatterer_ ~~ _she’s shattered she’s dead she’s GONEGONEGONE shards broken, fractured, cold, there’s nocomingback_ ~~ _youSHATTEREDher_ ~~ _you’reamonst—_

**_NO!_ **

The last stitch holding his battered soul in one piece snaps. His chest heaving, strained, sloppy wails begin to rise into the air like the threads of thin morning mist, fading into obscurity under the thunderstorm’s might. A rush of wind bites against his face, the salt of his tears mixing with the steadily falling rain. Gently... reverently... ( _too late too late you’re_ ** _too late)_** he gathers up all her shards in his palm.

Steven’s genuinely unsure how much time passes while he sobs there in the crater’s heart, the soil turning to mud under his knees. Each second is an eternity spent locked within the recesses of his own mind, screaming in denial at the wreck he’s become, the mess he’s made. Connie, his dad, the Gems, and now _her_ —! In all paths of the known universe, how is it that— despite years of tireless effort to do the right thing— his life has fallen to this? What’s _wrong_ with him??

He doesn’t notice he’s pink again until the glow’s already overtaken his body, entombing him like a second skin. Blood pumps wildly right alongside the dizzying rush of hard light through non-organic veins. The teen’s breath hastens, and he‘s powerless to stifle his cries as he begins to swell up, an ungodly sum of pressure threatening to burst out right then and there from the arc of his spine. On his own there’s nothing he can do but hunch over and ride the episode through, his head throbbing and mind shrouded in static. Arms tremble to support his upper body. His chest bows in and out in an unpredictable pattern, and yet no sum of air is enough to quell his panic. Grinding his eyes shut, he hunts for an anchor. Shirt... his shirt. It’s sopping wet now, sticking to his back. The scent of pine needles, mingling amongst the rain. Sandals on his feet. The thunder, still causing him to seize like a child with each startling clap.

The weight of her fragments in ~~a shatterer’s~~ his hands.

~~ _(For once, a title not even Mom could claim, hah! Imagine that...!)_ ~~

It’s a slow path to victory, but eventually his anchors are successful. The swelling recedes. The stone and soil around him grows drab and neutral in color once more, the pink glow fading from his skin. His lungs ache from exertion as his breath evens out. Sitting back on his haunches, he lifts the remains of Jasper’s gem to eye level, watching as the sharp edged fragments knock against each other, waging battle even in death. Memories flicker through his mind like a roll of polaroids: the terror he experienced that night he met her on the beach; standing up to her as Stevonnie; the moment he realized with shame stewing in the pit of his heart just how insecure she really was, watching her all but corrupt herself; every day he tried to convince her with no success to reach out to Little Homeschool. Even if he didn’t... didn’t hurt her, would all this still be his fault? Could he have done more? Is this nightmare he’s trapped himself in a failure of aid as _well_ as a failure of morality?

What happened to him, Steven Universe, savior of the galaxy? When did he stop being the boy who heals?

“What... am I doing...?” he pants, gripping the shards in closed fists. “I.... I have to fix this.” Blinking heavily against the rain, his emboldened words spill out into the observing wilderness. “There’s _gotta_ be a way to fix this!”

With a stubbornness as hard as diamond stirring in his heart, he grinds his teeth together, opening his eyes so wide that they sting. His tears once brought Lars back to life. They outright resurrected the dead. So shouldn’t it stand to reason they should also weave ~~shattered~~ Gems back together?

“Come on,” he says pitifully, holding the glittering orange remains close to his face. “Please! Cry, Universe, _cry!_ I just...!”

He feels his face screw up, powerless once more to hold the sobs back. They strip the layers of his soul to bedrock, each gasping cry more helpless and desperate than the last. Water carves a messy trail down his cheek, dripping off his chin and onto the slick shards. The droplets clinging to their surface area cause the ambient light to scatter at new and unpredictable angles. If not for the sobering context, he’d call it beautiful. But despite the tracks of his tears, the shards remain dim and cold.

Lifeless.

His shoulders shudder.

“I-I don’t want this,” he says, voice hitching, “I don’t want to hurt _anyone!_ So why can’t I just—“

 _Wait,_ he realizes with the speed of a lightning strike to a tree.

“The diamond essences,” he whispers hoarsely, tasting each syllable on his tongue. “They- they can heal corrupted Gems, bring them back w-where I can’t alone. Is… is it possible they could also—?”

Steven shoots to his feet at the crater’s center, clutching onto the pieces of the quartz Gem like a lifeline. He- oh stars, he has to get back to the house, quick! There’s still time. There’s still a sliver of hope. He can still mend this mess he’s made. Turning on his heels, he begins to sprint back to camp with Jasper in tow, his flip flops noisily squelching in the mud.

 _The future won’t win, not here, not now. I won’t let it. I’m_ ~~ _not a shatterer_ ~~ _a healer! I’m Steven Universe. I'm in control._

_I’m still in control._

**Author's Note:**

> I've spent months on this and I'm tired of re-editing it over and over, so here, haha. Take it. 
> 
> I imagine at this point in time, Steven's still able to convince himself that he doesn't intend to hurt anyone. After Homeworld Bound, however, the stray thoughts that flicker through his head about White scare him into believing he absolutely does have that intent and is thus just a terrible person, an irredeemable monster. Which of course he's not, he's just a teen dealing with mental illness who's found himself making a series of unfortunate decisions. (Decisions which, of course, all do still have their consequences.)


End file.
